This past Friday and Saturday, I got together with a bunch of my college buddies for a road trip up to Birchwood, Wisconsin to later hang out at one of my bud's cabin next to the lake.
We swam, kayaked, canoed, went out on the boat, went tubing, had a bonfire......the usual summertime stuff.
One of my favorite parts of the trip was not something that brings a ton of excitement, like flying off of a tube when you lose your grip after hitting a big wave.
Fishing. That was one of my favorite parts. The patient game where you can't always see what's biting your bait or staring at it to see if it's worth biting, but when something does bite, you go from 'about to pass out bored' to "I GOT SOMETHING!!! AHHH!!!" in about 2 seconds.
But I was experiencing the first part for a while.
Went out Friday in the late afternoon......no fish and very few bites.
Saturday morning......caught a fish smaller than my phone......not really what you call catching a "fish"......and then finally, later in the morning towards noon, 2 more fish.
The first fish twice the size of the fish I wasn't claiming as a fish due to it's miniscule size, and then the third and final fish just a little bit bigger than the second.
Not much for catching fish, but hey, at least I caught something! 3 somethings!
1 Peter 5:7
Cast all your cares and anxieties on God because He cares for you.
Last week's devotional ended with the verse 1 Peter 5:7, which was the very first Bible verse I ever learned and memorized.
"First Peduh fibe-sebben: God cayuhs foh you," is about how I would've said it at 3 years old.
Nothing too complex, because a 3-year-old figured it out......
Give your worries, cares, anxieties, requests...and deliver them to God. Doesn't seem too difficult, yet I often hear from others who say they're waiting patiently for something to happen, something to change, for God to show up in their lives, that maybe this "casting cares" thing isn't just about taking action but about believing in the action that was taken.
Hear me out:
In John 21, Jesus has already been crucified and risen from the dead, but now he's out to surprise his disciples while they're out fishing.
v.3 - The disciples aren't catching anything.
v.4 - Jesus shows up
v.5 - Jesus to his boys, " You guys getting anything?" The boys, "Nope, nothing."
v.6 - Jesus tells them to cast their nets elsewhere, and they catch hundreds upon hundreds of fish, so many fish that they almost can't pull it all in their boat!
Then they proceeded to have fish for breakfast, which is pretty weird, but I'm having fish for brunch at 11:30 this morning, so yeah.....
Anyways, my point to get across is that when you allow God into your life, He's going to bless you with an abundance of blessings so much bigger than you're ready to embrace.
But sometimes, you also have to cast your net elsewhere, meaning you might be going after the wrong thing(s) and God wants you to look somewhere else, to go after something or someone different.
1 Peter 5:10
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, After you have suffered for a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.
It says it, 3 verses away from the next, he promise God makes:
He will restore you, making you new through Him.
He will confirm you, knowing you're not going anywhere with Him at your side.
He will strengthen you, giving you experience through your battles so when they come again, either in your path or in the paths of others, you will know what to do.
And He will establish you, making you a firm house on a rock, unable to be moved by evil. (Matthew 7)
Never once have I heard from someone that they went through all of life without any hurt, pain, or suffering. Sin does those things, and we are going to have to learn how to fight that hurt, pain and suffering, which comes from below, not above.
Casting your cares to God......probably a good start.
And then I think the next important part of the casting your cares part is the waiting part.
Yes, waiting really stinks, in fact, it sucks! Like really bad.
When you cast your lure out into the water and get 3 bites in a 20-30 minute period and don't catch anything but seaweed, that's not something to be joyful about.
But what is to be joyful about is what God has brought you in the past, and how that can't even compare to the joy that's coming when you remain patient because patience produces results.
Jeremiah 33:3
Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.
While I was fishing yesterday, I was thinking about how all of the fish beneath the water must be laughing at me because all of their fish-cousins and family members keep stealing my worms and are probably making jokes while I wait for one of them to jump on my hook.
Yeah, that's pretty dumb to think, but what's kind of crazy is that the fish are most likely staring at my worm.......patiently.......and it's really just a battle to see who will be more patient: me or the fish.
I'm going to tell you what else is frustrating: not seeing/hearing God. In fact, if I had a pet-peeve related to faith, that would be very high on the charts.
The fact that I can't drive my car down the road and walk into God's house is something I seriously get upset about, and it's silly because God is with us all the time.
We don't need to go seeking for something else, someone else, something that makes us feel worth something more, something that is just a thing, a thing that will wither just like the rest of us.
We need to be content with what God already has given us: eternal life in Heaven through Him, the sacrifice of Jesus, and this beautiful world where we can fish on the weekends, eat brunch on the weekends because we slept in or forgot to eat before we went to church, and be thankful for what we do have while we wait patiently for what God's currently working on for us.
Questions to Ask Yourself:
1. What is it that you're waiting for? Is it a thing or a person or both?
2. Is it something you're in control of or is it something you should ask God for help with?
3. Not a question but a request: I want you to write down 3 or more things that God has blessed you with from your past that you had to wait patiently for.
For me, my 3 are my little brother Andrew (I love my sister, and when I got the phone call at 9 years old that I was going to have a little brother, I was so excited to teach him all the things boys/young men learn), the opportunity to sing in so many amazing musical groups at Wartburg College, and someone special, whose laugh and smile display what an amazing heart she has, that cares for others, and myself, and puts God first in our relationship, my girlfriend London.
Yeah it's sappy, but man all of the nights where I stayed in my dorm room thinking about who God was going to bring into my life and when that might be, driving long nights in the dark back home for the weekend to hang out with my friends and their girlfriends; the suffering during the times where I was patient was nothing compared to what the patience produced.
When you look back at the things you waited for that you thought maybe weren't possible before, you'll remember how faithful God is to those who trust in Him.
Pray......that your faith would remain steadfast, and that by chasing God, you'll run into the product of patience that God had been working on all the time you had been waiting, and you'll acknowledge then and now how great our God truly is.
With that said,
Live, love, and be loved.
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